Iraq War resisters should be welcomed

I’m a Vietnam War-era U.S. army deserter who will be forever grateful to Canada for making it possible for me to follow my conscience and settle in this wonderful country.

Letter writer Edith Blanchette has her facts wrong about both the war resisters of my generation and the Iraq War resisters who have followed us to Canada some decades later. Many of the deserters who came to Canada had volunteered to join the U.S. armed services. They were welcomed here as warmly as those of us who were drafted.

I was drafted and sworn in as a soldier on Feb. 6, 1969. What I learned from soldiers who had returned from Vietnam confirmed my view that the Vietnam War was morally, legally and politically a terrible mistake. Canada offered an alternative to people like me, who could not, in good conscience, obey orders to fight in Vietnam.

Iraq War resisters like Kim Rivera are following in my footsteps. They knew how Canada had welcomed people like them during the Vietnam War. Unfortunately they have not had the welcome offered to my generation.

As a proud Canadian citizen since 1975, I am appalled at Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s arrogant disregard of the views of most Canadians, and of two successive Parliaments, who have called on his government to let the Iraq War resisters stay in Canada. What happened to Kim Rivera and her family was unfair and un-Canadian.